Friday, April 6, 2012

A Friday the 13th Free Book Giveaway Planned

Mystery novelist and former journalist Stacy Juba put together a group of 13 authors for a Friday the 13th free Kindle book giveaway to take place next week.

Stacy, how and why did you come up with the Friday the 13th free book extravaganza with 13 authors?

My mystery novel Sink or Swim is entered in the Kindle Select program, which means that I've given Amazon a 90-day exclusive for the e-book edition in return for 5 free promotion days designed to boost its visibility on Amazon. I used up my first 3 days, and had great success, with many sales in the U.S. and the United Kingdom - its best performance ever. I had two days remaining before I put it back with other retailers, and I didn't know if I could exceed or match the previous success as many e-book sites had already featured the book. I had already chosen April 13 as a free day, to tie-in with a couple other promotions that I had happening at that time, and I suddenly realized that was Friday the 13th. I thought that would be a good hook for a bunch of mystery authors to get together and host a free Kindle day. I knew it had to be 13 books and 13 authors. I spread the word on some author loops that I was looking for Kindle Select mystery authors to team up with, and had a great response.

How does it work?

On Friday, April 13, we'll have 13 books free in the Kindle store. All books on the list are guaranteed to be free that day only. We've been working aggressively to get the word out. The authors have a publishing history that includes Dutton, William Morrow, Dell, Avon, MIRA Books, St. Martin's Minotaur, and Mainly Murder Press, to name a few.

Among the accomplishments of the listed authors are New York Times bestselling, Amazon bestselling, Edgar-nominated, Agatha-nominated, winner of the St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Novel, finalist in the Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine National Short Story Contest, and recipients of the Premier Book Awards Mystery/Thriller of the Year Award, to name just a few accomplishments. So the whole event is quite exciting and Kindle readers will have an opportunity to grab 13 quality books at no cost. Some, like Sink or Swim, will be free for the last time.

Thanks, Stacy.

A list of the free books which will be available: http://www.amazon.com/lm/RXUK7UVMTPUOH/ref=cm_lm_pthnk_view?ie=UTF8&lm_bb=